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Royse 1

Table of Contents
Orwe: a Product of Hs Envronment wth a Mnd of Hs Own
pg. 2
Deconstructonsm and the Truth n Bg Brothers Les
pg. 5
WAR IS PEACE. pg. 8
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY.
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
Newspeak: 1t$ yk T0T3S d3str0y1ng 0uR L@NgU@G3!!!1!!!!1! L0L.
pg. 16
Concuson: 1984=2011? pg. 21

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2UZell: a PUoduct of His EnviUonment Zith a Mind of His 2Zn
Imagne a word n whch you wake up each mornng to
ncessant nose and moton from a screen on your wa. Ths screen
houses a of your nformaton. It tes you what to beeve n, what to
buy, and what s gong on n the word. Ths word has constant war
and turmo, and natonastc prde s more vaued than ntegence.
The fghtng s so dstant that t affects the peope ony ndrecty, and
the maorty of the funds beong to a mnorty of the peope. Fath
beongs not wth God, but wth those n power. Prvacy does not exst
except n dreams.
In 1973, Martn Cooper nvented the ce phone (The Ce
Phone). Sx years ater, Wam Modrdge conceptuazed the aptop
(Laptop Computers). These nventons revoutonzed the way
peope deat wth technoogy. It was now possbe to receve news
updates and nformaton from frends vrtuay anywhere; everyday,
new technoogy s comng out whch makes constant connecton a
coser and coser possbty. The US has been nvoved n ten
nvasons and wars snce 1950; many of these have asted for years
and nvoved many other countres as we (Tayor). 43% of the weath
n Amerca beongs to 1% of the peope (Domhoff). In the
documentary, Iesus Camp, produced n 2006, footage of chdren
beng taught to worshp a cardboard cutout of George W. Bush s
shown (lesus Camp). Ths s the word we ve n. Ths s J984.
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Orwe created a shockng dystopan unverse wth hs nove
J984. It was the product of the cumnaton of many dfferent aspects
of hs fe. Everyone s a product of her envronment. The controversa
art, scentfc dscoveres, potca cmate, and raca tensons of ones
era w undoubtedy shape her work even wthout her
acknowedgement. In ths way, George Orwes J984 was obvousy
moded by the authors concerns about the Cod War and experences
n Inda, as many crtcs have noted. However, I have found that
Orwes wrtng ends tsef better to a deconstructonst approach.
Nevertheess, I cannot contnue wthout acknowedgng the work of
my predecessors.
Aok Ra sees a maor probem wth the numerous nterpretatons
of J984. He dscusses n hs book Orwell and the Politics of Despair: a
Critical 5tudy of the Works of Ceorge Orwell that Orwes work has
been cted for many purposes: regous, potca, and beyond. Severa
other bographca crtcs exst aongsde hm, ncudng Iohn Rodden,
who states an agreement wth Ras concern. Both worry that the fact
that J984 had a certan negatvty about t causes t to end tsef
ready to msnformed ant-Socast and conservatve crtcs, who
may vew Orwe as one of ther own. I hadnt thought of ths before
readng ther work, but once I dd I reazed how very true t was. At
ths pont the deconstructonst n me came out. Because every
recever of the nformaton n ths book s gettng somethng dfferent
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out of t, each w contend that Orwe meant somethng dfferent.
That s why I personay chose to steer cear of bographca crtcsm.

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'econstUuctionism and the TUuth in Big BUotheUs Lies
Deconstructonsm s a term that has been defned many ways.
One reason that many deconstructonsts resst defnng ths word s
that they worry about some meanng becomng ost n transaton.
Ths s, n tsef, one sort of defnton for the word. Many
deconstructonsts beeve that by assgnng abes (sgnfers) to deas
and thngs (the sgnfed) some meanng w aways be ost. For my
purposes t s most usefu to use the PBS defnton,
A term ted very cosey to postmodernsm,
deconstructonsm s a chaenge to the attempt to
estabsh any utmate or secure meanng n a text. Basng
tsef n anguage anayss, t seeks to "deconstruct" the
deoogca bases (gender, raca, economc, potca,
cutura) and tradtona assumptons that nfect a
hstores, as we as phosophca and regous "truths."
Deconstructonsm s based on the premse that much of
human hstory, n tryng to understand, and then defne,
reaty has ed to varous forms of domnaton - of nature,
of peope of coor, of the poor, of homosexuas, etc. Lke
postmodernsm, deconstructonsm fnds concrete
experence more vad than abstract deas and, therefore,
refutes any attempts to produce a hstory, or a truth. In
other words, the mutpctes and contngences of human
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experence necessary brng knowedge down to the oca
and specfc eve, and chaenge the tendency to centraze
power through the cams of an utmate truth whch must
be accepted or obeyed by a.
I w focus prmary on bnary oppostons as they reate to the
government created by Orwe, and then ater dscuss the mpcatons
of Newspeak. Severa terms that need to be defned for carty before I
begn are standard case, speca case, and bnary oppostons.
Standard case, as I defne t, s the case that exsted frst, s more
common, and s gven more preferenta treatment n socety and
nature. Now, of course t w be rare for a three of these stpuatons
to be accounted for n one term, so n the event of a contradcton I
w specfy whch dentfer was most usefu to me. Speca case, s
the antonym of standard case, or the case whch was created ater, s
ess common, and s gven ess preferenta treatment n socety and
nature. Bnary oppostons are thngs or deas, whch socety
commony accepts as oppostes.
The bnary oppostons of Orwes work coud not be ad out n a
more promnent way. They stand out on the page wth the use of
generous ndentng, and are bound together by the word s, rather
than beng separated by onger ess concse words, adectves, or any
other dstracters. They are n a caps so as not to gve one part of the
par prorty over the other. I have chosen to use ths same technque
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n my chapter tte. As Orwe says, WAR IS PEACE. IGNORANCE IS
STRENGTH. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, (4). Orwe probaby chose these
pars to catch the nterest of the reader, because typcay peope
beeve that these words are antonyms or are at east hghy
contradctory. For ths reason, I w be operatng under the
assumpton that most peope beeve the opposte of Orwes
statement s true.
When ookng at these pars I w frst dentfy whch s the
standard case and whch s a speca case of the standard. Then I w
examne the truth of these cases. I w do ths by breakng down each
of the afore-mentoned questons and usng my answers to fnd the
convenence n the utmate truths we beeve. Then I w work to
expose the fact that utmate truths exst ony to centraze power.

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:$5 lS PE$CE
lGN25$NCE lS ST5ENGTH
F5EE'2M lS SL$9E5<
War s peace. Before we begn to examne these words as they
reate to each other, we must examne them as they stand aone.
Merram-Webster defnes war as a state of hostty, confct, or
antagonsm l@ a strugge or competton between opposng forces or
for a partcuar end (war), and peace as state of tranquty or
quet: asl@freedom from cv dsturbancel@a state of securty or
order wthn a communty provded for by aw or custom(peace).
Peace woud be the ogca choce when decdng whch came
frst n ths par, at frst gance. However, once one acknowedges that
humans are not the ony creatures or organsms who partcpate n
war, t becomes much easer to see that peace s ony magnary. The
natura state of our word s at war. For ths argument I w be usng
the frst porton of Merram-Websters defnton, whch states that war
s a state of confct. The word, even when t s magned n ts most
natura, unnterrupted form, coud not exst wthout confct. The most
garng exampe s the constant confct of fe and death, whch woud
exst, even wthout human nterventon. Every organsm s constanty
nvoved n ths confct, and t s one that s competey necessary for
the survva of our panet. Were peace to be decared n ths pace, t
woud mean the end of the word and everythng n t.
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Ths can be proven further when usng the ast defnton of the
word peace, (a state of securty or order wthn a communty provded
for by aw or custom.) If the word began n a state of peace, there
woud be no reason for aws or customs. Laws and customs exst ony
to dscourage behavor whch has created probems n the past. Snce
ts own defnton states that t s provded for by aw or custom we
must assume that t cannot exst wthout aw or custom, and
therefore, came after transgresson. For ths reason, I must concude
that war has aways been present n our word, and that war s far
more prevaent.
Ths par rases an nterestng queston when ookng at the thrd
queston: shoud we consder peace to be preferenta, because, when
speakng theoretcay, most w say they prefer t, or s war what s
preferred, because when faced wth an actua stuaton most w
choose t over other optons? I must reference the od sayng, actons
speak ouder than words. Moreover, organsms on our panet are the
drvng force for fe n the afore-mentoned confct of fe and death. If
we wanted peace, why woud we not surrender the fght and de? I
must concude that t s because, n nature as we as socety, war s
gven preferenta treatment.
For these reasons, war s the true standard case, and peace
s the speca case. However, most woud dsagree wth ths statement
at frst gance. In our heads we know that peace s what we shoud
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prefer, and we hope that there was a tme of peace before war. We do
ths, because t s convenent. It s convenent for our governments,
who te us that they are fghtng for peace, and t keeps us from vng
n fear that fghtng w never end.
Orwe understands that utmate truths are unreabe and are
merey used as toos by those n power. In the nove, the ogc behnd
war s peace s descrbed by Godsten as he says,
Even the humbest party member s expected to be
competent, ndustrous, and even ntegent wthn narrow
mts, but t s aso necessary that he shoud be a
creduous and gnorant fanatc whose prevang moods are
fear, hatred, aduaton, and orgastc trumph. In other
words t s necessary that he shoud have a mentaty
approprate to a state of war. It does not matter whether
the war s happenngl@A that s needed s that a state of
war shoud exst.l@It woud probaby be accurate to say
that by becomng contnuous war has ceased to exst.l@A
peace that was truy permanent woud be the same as a
permanent war (Orwe 192,199)
Ths s obvousy a statement that Orwe was makng about the
Cod War; however, t s ust as reevant today. Ths thought s
terrfyng, but why s t not scary enough to change the way peope
ve ther ves? I beeve that the answer to ths queston s at the
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heart of utmate truths. When we beeve that war must come before
peace, war w come before peace, and t s possbe that peace w
never come. In other words, when we cose ourseves off to optons
outsde of the utmate truths we beeve, our utmate truths become
sef-fufng propheces.
I need to dea wth IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH, n a sghty
dfferent way than the par before t. I do not thnk gnorance beongs
opposte strength or vce versa, rather gnorance beongs opposte
ntegence. Snce ntegence s sad to gve you strength, and
gnorance s sad to make you weak, I w be treatng ths par as
though t says IGNORANCE IS INTELLIGENCE.
Merram-Websters defntons are as foows: Ignorance: the
state or fact of beng gnorant: ack of knowedge, educaton, or
awareness,(Ignorance) and
Integence: (1): the abty to earn or understand or to
dea wth new or tryng stuatons : REASON; also : the sked
use of reason (2) : the abty to appy knowedge to
manpuate one's envronment or to thnk abstracty as
measured by obectve crtera (as tests).(Integence)
In ths case, I fee ncredby certan that preferenta treatment
was gven to ntegence n years past. In nature, those wth
ntegence are st better abe to probem sove and deveop toos
and methods for deang wth probems n nature. However, I beeve
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that socetys reactons to ntegence have changed markedy n past
years. Idocy has recenty begun beng rewarded wth money and
fame. However, I st must concude that, the maorty of the tme,
ntegence s preferred. I aso fee confdent that gnorance came frst
n the word, snce ntegence s ganed through fe experences, and
gnorance sgnfes not an nabty to earn but a ack of knowng.
Now t s the ast queston that s hardest to answer n ths case.
I honesty cannot, n good conscence, presume whether gnorance or
ntegence s more prevaent n the word, so I w omt that queston
from the st for ths par. A thngs consdered, I beeve that
ntegence s the standard case, and gnorance s the speca case.
However, gnorance does have ts benefts. Besdes what I
mentoned earer, socetys new tendency to reward gnorance wth
money and fame, there are rewards. Ignorant peope have tte to
worry about, eavng the ntegent peope to strugge wth the words
probems, ony contrbutng when t suts them. Ths eads me to my
concuson wth ths par.
Orwe was rght n two ways. One, those who are gnorant do
not know ther weaknesses or mts, and therefore fee a heghtened
percepton of ther own strength. Two, gnorance does gve strength to
an organzaton or government. The more gnorant everyone s n a
group, the more effectvey t w run, because there w be ess
rebeons and ess struggng for power. Ths s the way that I beeve
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Orwe ntended to be nterpreted, because t s bascay the way that
OBren expans the concept to Wnston n Room 101.
Once agan, I w use Merram-Websters defntons for my
anayss. Freedom s defned as, the absence of necessty,
coercon, or constrant n choce or acton l@ unrestrcted use
(freedom). Savery s defned as drudgery, to l@ submsson to
a domnatng nfuence (savery).
Manknd woud ove to beeve that freedom s the natura state
of the free word, and whe ths mght be true for humans ownng
other humans, t s certany not true of a types of savery.
Submsson to a domnatng nfuence s a part of every vng thngs
day fe. It s gven many names: Mother Nature, God, Aah, Fate, but
no matter what you ca t, there are forces n ths word that hod us
captve. In ths way, savery has aways been a part of the word.
In Amerca especay, t s beeved that peope are vng free
ves, that we have free w, and that, as a generaty, we do what we
want. Drudgery and to, the second defnton, are more commony
accepted as an unavodabe part of fe. However, the defnton of
freedom, (the absence of necessty, coercon, or constrant n choce
or acton) shoud seem foregn to everyone. The absence of constrant
n choce or acton s an ncredby mpausbe dea. Everyone s
constraned by the mts of her body, her mnd, and her word.
Humans cannot be wthout these mts unt they have dscovered
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mmortaty, and even then, what f one wshes to de? True freedom s
not present anywhere n our word. Freedom from drudgery and to s
absoutey preferred n the mnds of men, but savery s gven far
more preferenta treatment n socety and nature.
As Orwe says, through Wnston, Freedom s the freedom to say
that two pus two make four. If that s granted, a ese foows, (81).
However, Wnston makes one error n hs ogc. He earned that two
pus two equas four from the very peope who he fears w try and
take t from hm. Peope are a at the mercy of those they earn from.
In the end, that s the government. The ony thngs we earn on our
own are nstnctve: breathng, eatng, and catchng ourseves as we
fa. Anythng earned after that ndcates a ack of freedom. However,
n the modern word, true freedom as dscussed above, (earnng ony
from yoursef) woud make you poweress to make your own
decsons, and therefore, st a save to those n power. In ths way,
freedom s savery.

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NeZspeak: 1t$ lyk T0T3S d3stU0y1ng 0u5
L@NgU@G3!!!1!!!!1! L0L.
When peope are happy, ther brans te ther faca musces to
sme. When they are sad, ther brans te ther faca musces to
frown. However, most peope dont know that ther faces are
communcatng wth ther brans ust as much. Now Id ke to take a
moment to tak about Botox. Botox teray parayzes the faca
musces nvoved wth nes. Specfcay augh nes and frown
nes. See where Im headed? Accordng to vescence.com
Compared wth the contro group, the Botox partcpants
exhbted an overa sgnfcant decrease n the strength of
emotona experence, the researchers wrote n a paper
pubshed n the Iune ssue of the ourna Emoton. In
partcuar, the Botox group responded ess strongy to
mdy postve cps after they had the nectons than
before the Botox. (Moskowtz)
Ths brngs us to Newspeak, the Botox of anguage. The government
of J984 seems outandsh to the peope of today. It s hard to fathom a
word n whch peope have no contro and no prvacy n ther own
affars. However, severa thngs n whch the government takes part
make a sow rse to that sort of power possbe. One of these s the
constant war. When peope are afrad, they are more key to gve up
ther bertes for securty. Another s the rse of newspeak. In
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anguage, the sgnfer s defned by the sgnfed; kewse, the
sgnfed exsts because of the sgnfer. Ths s especay true when t
comes to abstract thoughts and emotons. By ths same ogc, when
the sgnfer s removed or mutated, the sgnfed w shorty foow.
Orwes government fuy utzes ths. Wnston notces t as he
says, It was not the mans bran that was speakng; t was hs arynx.
The stuff that was comng out of hm conssted of words, but t was
not speech n the true sense: t was a nose uttered n
unconscousness, ke the quackng of a duck, (54). The degradaton
of anguage becomes amost a sport for the government and the
peope workng for the Mnstry of Truth. As Syme says to Wnston,
In the end the whoe noton of goodness and badness w
be covered by ony 6 words- n reaty, ony one word.l@In
your heart youd prefer to stck to Odspeak, wth a ts
vagueness and ts useess shades of meanng. You dont
grasp the beauty of the destructon of words.l@ Dont you
see that the whoe am of Newspeak s to narrow the range
of thought? In the end we w make thoughtcrme teray
mpossbe, because there w be no words n whch to
express t. Every concept that can ever be needed w be
expressed by exacty one word, wth ts meanng rgdy
defned and a ts subsdary meanngs rubbed out and
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forgotten.l@ Every year fewer and fewer words, and the
range of conscousness aways a tte smaer. (51, 52)
He goes on to dscuss how, n the future, thought tsef w be
aboshed. Whe t may seem ke a far cry from the word today,
perhaps peope need to take a coser ook at the way they are
communcatng. The consodaton of the Engsh anguage has
become coo. Acronyms and abbrevatons are takng over where
varous shades of meanng once stood. It s not an exaggeraton to
say that ths has gone further than ust smpfyng our speech. It s
smpfyng our thoughts as we.
One excerpt from the book wrtten n Newspeak s, tmes
3.12.83 reportng bb dayorder doubepusungood refs unpersons
rewrte fuwse upsub antefng, (44). The government of J984 s not
ony concerned wth teachng ths anguage for the purposes of
readng and wrtng. It s nterested n takng over thought. If the
mechanca fee of the anguage coud be paced nto the mnds of the
peope, t coud essentay turn them nto vng robots. If they were
gven no words for orgna thought, they woud sowy ose ther
capacty for t, and wth t, ther capacty for potca dssent.
The msuse of words n Orwes word s aso very usefu for the
governments cause. The three mnstres are probaby the best
exampes of ths. The Mnstry of Love, Mnstry of Truth, and Mnstry
of Penty actuay work on the opposte of what ther names mght
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suggest. The Mnstry of Love works on torture. The Mnstry of Truth
works on the dstrbuton of es. The Mnstry of Penty works on
ratonng goods. The word ove s degraded further n the new
Newspeak dctonary when t s speed uv (mnuv s Newspeak for
the Mnstry of Love).
Ths operates as not ony another exampe of Orwes magned
government msrepresentng themseves, but as an exampe of how
the msuse of anguage can degrade meanng. On the topc of ove,
Wnston says,
It was not merey that the sex nstnct created a word of ts
own whch was outsde the Partys contro and whch
therefore had to be destroyed f possbe. What was more
mportant was that sexua prvaton nduced hystera,
whch was desrabe because t coud be transformed nto
war fever and eader worshp (132-133).
It s here that we see how mportant t s to the party that sexua
nstncts and ovng feengs are botted out from the human
experence; we can aso see that romantc ove, that s ove unreated
to sex, has essentay been removed from the anguage aready.
Everythng appears to have been botted out but physca urges, and
even those have been gven such a negatve connotaton that they
are never taked about. Ths s the best exampe n the book of
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Newspeak confnng the range of human emoton; we see wth t that
ths s possbe, and get a good fee for the dangers of Newspeak.

Royse 20

Conclusion: 1984=20117
In concuson, there s obvousy somethng to be sad for
bographca and soco-hstorca crtcsm of Orwes J984, but there
s much more to be uncovered wth a deconstructonst ook at the
nove. Aso, we need to take what we can from the nove symbocay
as we as teray so that we can avod foowng the same path.
Perhaps f we were abe to stop recevng our nformaton from
screens nstead of faces and f we actuay sad what we meant we
woud be abe to ward off the type of future that Orwe so eery
predcted.

Royse 21

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lesus Camp. Dr. Hed Ewng and Grady, Rache. Lok Fms, 2006.
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Moskowtz, Cara. "Botox Lmts Abty to Fee
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2010. Web. 18 May 2011. <http://www.vescence.com/8325-
botox-mts-abty-fee-emotons.htm>.
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<http://www.merram-webster.com/dctonary/savery>.
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<http://www.merram-webster.com/dctonary/strength>.
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